Games and Simulation for Healthcare: An UpdateEric B. Bauman PhD, RN and Allan R. Barclay, MLIS, AHIP

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Evaluate a Simulation Social & Professional Information

International Events Calendar

Read and Share the LiteratureSearch or Browse Inventory

Local, National & International LabsLocal Connections and Beyond

Evaluate a Game

Games & Sims Portal Project

An update on a portal project for games and simulation forhealth care. The portal at http://healthcaregames.wisc.edu (or http://healthcaresims.wisc.edu) continues to grow. Changes include: new items added to the inventory; an updated listing of simulation labs around the world cross listed in Google Maps; a new events calendar, created in Google Calendar; and a news blog. The portal has generatedinterest in related projects such as an attempt to codify acontrolled vocabulary or taxonomy for health care relatedgames and simulation.

Literature

We have a large locally maintained RefWorks databaseof game and simulation related literature (including a number of items not normally indexed like conferenceproceedings). We hope to spend some time organizingand tagging these records for use in other parts of thesite and for better user searching. We are also workingon a better way to get news and current event informationpulled into the site in a semi-automated fashion (alsoincluding Tweets or other non-canonical sources).

Inventory

A variety of improvements to the basic game andsim inventory have been suggested and/or arealready planned for. They include:

Licensing or access information Ratings or reviews Scholarly literature citations added to relevant item records

Taxonomy

Consistent language is needed for several areas of the sitebut there is great ambiguity at present. Discussions areunderway to look into addressing the issue. Areas of the siteimpacted would include:

Inventory records for better search results Inventory record faceted browsing Scholarly literature indexing and organizing for browsing and searching

NEXT STEPS:ABSTRACT:

Labs

We have a large number of simulation labs entered intoour database and cross-listed in an openly accessibleGoogle Maps instance. We have a large number of possibleadditions to the inventory. Currently we have links to the lab websites and address information where available. Weplan to add more detailed information to the lab records (based on input at a CASI demo session in Spring 2010). This could include primary audiences, equipment, accesspolicies, etc.